April 14, 2025 • 62 mins
Right Thinking with Steve Coplon | Guest: Johnnie Lloyd
This week's show is called "Reality Check," with guest Johnnie Lloyd. Tune in and hear Steve and Johnnie continue their series Right Thinking: Life, Money, Relationships, this week with the sixth episode. Will the way that you handle your money work for you in the future, or will it cave in on you? Steve and Johnnie will teach you how to find out.
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/right-thinking
This week's show is called "Reality Check," with guest Johnnie Lloyd. Tune in and hear Steve and Johnnie continue their series Right Thinking: Life, Money, Relationships, this week with the sixth episode. Will the way that you handle your money work for you in the future, or will it cave in on you? Steve and Johnnie will teach you how to find out.
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/right-thinking
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
There must be lies burning brighter somewhere. Got to be
birs hi.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
In the sky.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Good morning, Welcome to Right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I'm
your host, Steve Copeland, and thank you for tuning in.
Let's have a great day. Good morning, everybody, glad to
be with you. Well, we're on episode two thirty one.
Right Thinking with Steve Copeland is very pleased to announce
(00:49):
that this week's show is called reality Check with guests
Johnny Lloyd. Tune in and here Steve and Johnny continue
their series Right Thinking, Life, Money Relationships this week with
the sixth episode. Well, the way that you handle your
money work for you in the future or will it
came in on you? Step and Johnny will teach you
(01:12):
how to find out? Johnny, how do you like that
theme for today?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I actually love the theme for today.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I think it says so much about where we're going
because it is about a reality check.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, the reality check. I thought of a whole lot
of different ways to say it. But you know, we're
six six episodes in on this series and the thing
that we've been doing is we've tried to give a
foundational look at what do you do with your life?
How does it affect your behavior with how you spend
(01:47):
your money? Rather, and I got a very overview question
for you today, but it's going to lead into why
we're doing this particular theme today. We're showing people how
to track their money, how to think about what they
want out of life, how it relates to how they
handle their money, and to show them that if you're
(02:07):
on top of your money, you you have a very
good chance of maybe going after some of those dreams
and goals that you set for yourself. But if you
don't monitor your money and things like that, you're probably
not gonna going to have great success. You know. It's
an overall state of awareness about yourself, knowing yourself. But
this is not a philosophy class. It's more of a
(02:30):
you know, money management kind of a program that we're
doing here. But I got to thinking, why do so
many people shy away from taking a deeper look at
how they handle their finances. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw
this one at you. You're ready, Johnny, What is the
(02:50):
basic difference between money, the term the word money and
the word finances.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Money is a tool. Money is just a tool. If
people look at money it's only a tool that represents
your finances, right. I mean, finances are more encompassing than
that is the management of If I would look at
the dictionary, it would be great time to get the
dictionary and find out what the dictionary says regarding that.
(03:22):
I don't know if you have that up Steve or not,
but I think when you look at it, let me
talk about for me when I managed.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
When I look at first of.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
All, management is only overseeing or empowering yourself with the
capacity and capability you have with it.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That's management, right, That's not leading.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
When I think of finance or the elements of wealth building, then.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I think of like you would think of a leader.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
A leader that knows the way, shows the way, grows
the way, grows, their way to their next level, grows
their way to the mission vision and purpose of the
organization or the person, because we all should have mission
vision and purpose as well. So those are the things
I think of when I think of the difference between
(04:18):
just money and finances, I think it's it's it's how
you manage, how you control, how you grow, how you
look at your future versus just your present tense as
a tool.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Now, what do you.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Think see that's that's good. You know, I've noticed that
the last couple of weeks, I haven't I haven't thanked
and complimented use as much as I did in the
early couple sessions they were having. I did a lot
of times saying how wonderful it is for me to
have you share this this series with me, because it's
(04:57):
not me just speaking you know what I teach. It's
a chance to have it be like back and forth,
you know, interaction between us. And you know, I don't
know that I point out to everybody, but every one
of these shows that we do is uh, you know,
they're they're they're basically unrehearsed. They're spontaneous. And I'm drawing
(05:17):
upon Johnny's whole career and and and life background as
it relates to experiences and and and her financial background
or accounting background or career, because I know that no
matter what I throw at you, Johnny, uh, spontaneous like
I just did, that you're going to give a very
(05:38):
very correct answer. When I say correct everybody, There's many
things that have different answers, but correct, and that it
applies to everybody because it's honest, it's truthful, and people
will see that it's not just a rehearsed research type
of a of an answer. It's because that's who you
(05:58):
are and and that's really That might have been a
long way for me to say this, but but Johnny,
when people want to to get motivated or learn from
someone else, you hope that they're not a buy my
book kind of a personality where they're just trying to
give you something that's good for them, but maybe not
(06:19):
really be that good for the person that they're trying to,
you know, to give it to. In other words, I
want to know that people that I'm working with, that
I go to to mentor me and so forth, I
want to know that they're sincere and that they care
about me. And so my answer to money and finances
I thought about it. I thought about it right before
we got on the air this morning. And here's here's
(06:40):
the reason. I asked the question. When I did the
title to the show, and I said, well, the way
that you handle your money work for you in the future,
I started to put, well, the way that you manage
your finances work for you in the future. So that's
the question I ask you, and you right into without
(07:01):
me even giving you any preference about you went into
what managing things are and the reason that you manage things.
My definition or my answer for the difference between money
and finances is yes, money is the tool. We take money,
we do things with it. We get money coming in
through a thing called income, We create income sources. Those
(07:24):
income sources give us to where somebody might owe us something,
or we might be expecting something. It might be a
check in the mail, it could be a tax refund,
it could be But I spend a lot of time
on these fundamentals for the last five weeks that we're
doing this talking about cash flow, budgeting, money in, money out.
(07:45):
But your finances go broader, deeper, more into what it
is that you really want to do with your life.
You know, this whole series is life, money, relationships. And
so I'm going to go from money to finances by
simply saying this, your finances is a way that you
(08:09):
take what your ability to do things is as it
relates to needing, needing income, money, credit. We're going to
get into the future weeks into why credit is so important,
Why not carrying too much debt is so important. So
debt is part of your finances, but it may not.
(08:32):
It needs money to stay on top of it, but
it's not the word money. And when you do retirement planning,
when you do major purchases, when you take out a
mortgage to buy a house, it takes money to qualify
for a mortgage. You have to have credit with the
(08:54):
money that you're earning to be enough. But money is
just part of the equation. Finances is the term that
is being used to talk about more of the big
picture of what goes on in your life that relates
more directly to achievement of your goals and the fulfillment
of your dreams that you've had growing in you your
(09:17):
whole life. So my answer is money is the tool
exactly what you laid out and managing your money. Getting
into finances is taking that tool and using it to
do exactly what you articulated, you know, with growing things,
(09:37):
et cetera. No, it's it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So I have let me intget for just a second,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So when I as you were speaking, and I was
looking at something that says, there's part of what we're
teaching is also about consistency, is about the timeliness of
spending you money when you spend it right, Because we're
doing the money piece as far as the budget or
(10:05):
doing the cash flow, so you can see the timeliness
of it and the justification your why why would you
have a state as cant Why are you building for retirement?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Why?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
All that right?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And then the documentation is what you're teaching with the
six worksheets that you have out there that they need
to really download and start working on so that they
can build this in their own personal lives or their business.
This applies to your business. If you are a small
business owner or a large business owner, this applies to you.
(10:39):
And so the other thing is it also certifies, which
is interesting. It certifies or reconfirms what you say is
important to you. A few episodes ago, I talked about
if somebody gives me their checkbook, their different card, something
I can tell you your whole life if everything went
through that, because what you spend your money on, how
(11:02):
you manage it, and how you move forward certifies what
you really hold dear to you. Are you spending in
what category, what you're doing, and all of that. Okay,
so now the money piece, which is really cool, is
about where Steve and I are teaching you about savings.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
We're teaching you about investing.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
All things you just at, financial protection, tax savings, retirement planning,
all of those things. Don't miss this opportunity to really
impact your life in such a way because the lack
of things in your life will draw stress. We talked
(11:44):
about it in the first episode, and stress will impact
your body.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So that's why this is so important. It's not just.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
About the money management. It's not just about teaching you
the finance piece. It is deeper than that. It's a
life management system because when you do well with your resources,
your family does better. Your kids pick up the same habits,
you impact yourself in your life generationally, and I know
(12:15):
it's work. However, I'm going to tell you from experience.
Steve and I have experience. That's why we're doing it
this way. We have experienced real life experience where you know,
we were in places where it didn't work or we
couldn't work it or whatever was happening and are now.
So we're giving you and sharing with you let's go there,
(12:37):
sharing with you opportunities that you can move forward. We're
just we're just guiding you through your process of building
wealth and being positioned in a greater place for your life.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So Steve, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Thank you. So Johnny, Hi, I'm making the statement right
now that when you get on top of your money,
things will be better in your life. My foundation has
a slogan, don't quit, plan ahead, it will get better,
(13:16):
and I teach the importance of staying on top of
your money, and that's what we're kind of doing here.
When you learn how to manage your money properly, you'll
have success. Your relationships will be better. Same thing you
just said. I can't help but thinking a lot of
people listen to us right now. They may say they're
(13:37):
just way too basic, you know, I mean, get to
the point already, give me the tool. Well, I'm sorry,
but a lot of people think they understand. You know,
I use the Swiss Cheese analogy all the time. And
if you can't glean anything from what John and I
are teaching, like I offered in the second episode, give
me a call and you can start teaching with me
if you want, Because I'm looking for other people that
(13:58):
can share something that's a higher level than than what
I know. And I'm acknowledging that there are plenty of
people out there you reference Warren Buffett in one of
the early early episodes. But what I'm getting at is this,
we are going to teach you a tool today. We're
going to give you a tool, and instead of giving
(14:19):
it to you like on a spreadsheet, it's it's a spreadsheet.
If you know the concept of this, you don't need
to know how to do a spreadsheet. You might not
you might not be good on a computer, you might
not know how to use Excel. If you know how
to use Excel, and many people do, if you understand
the concept in the why this will help you, you'll
(14:40):
be able to do it without seeing it on there.
And my whole my whole career is based on unless
I understand it and can visualize it in my mind.
You can give me a pre poppy a form that's
filling the blanks on your budget, like a bank statement
that a financial statement that says, here, show us what
(15:01):
your life looks like, show us what you're you know.
In other words, give us your give us your balance sheet,
give us you know where you make your money, list
all your bills, et cetera. But listing all your bills
doesn't necessarily have you go to that phase of reflecting,
I'm going to I'm going to do like a rap
song right now and give you like seven or eight
words in a row that all relate to what we're doing.
(15:21):
So you know the decision tool here. If you reflect
on what you're doing, you can decide on what you
want to do next. Better. You can then take action.
You can monitor what you decided to do. Then you
can can make adjustments when you monitor it to modify it.
(15:42):
You can alter your course, you can refocus, you can
explore alternatives, you can develop a plan. And it all
comes down to where if you believe in your dreams
and you have an I can do attitude, you can
use these tools to just really go after them in
a much more positive way than you ever could before.
(16:04):
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had
a lot of people I've been using these tools for
now over fifty years. When I was nineteen years old
and I just turned seventy, I went to Switzerland for
three weeks, and right when I was a freshman in college,
and everybody was saying, how can you afford to take
(16:27):
a trip like that? Steve, and I think last week
I said, because I didn't smoke cigarettes, I didn't drink
a lot of beer. I might have had a few beers,
but I kept it in reason. I didn't waste my money.
I had a used car. I didn't care too much
about about spending money on a car at an early age,
and that carried through my whole life when I had
my band that I had put all those engines and
(16:48):
transmissions and got the air conditioning system. My point is,
I've been doing the substitution principle by eliminating things that
don't have value to me and applying the money that
I that I would have spent on other things to
go after the things that I get focused on. Now,
the first five episodes of this show have helped people,
(17:11):
I think, get a focus on what we're talking about.
But now here's a new one liner that I'm going
to introduce that today's show is really going to work
around the longer lead time advance notice, the longer lead
time a person knows about something that is going to
(17:32):
be a potential problem that they're going to have to face,
the higher the probability that they can have a successful
outcome that and so what we're doing, you know, there's
a whole lot of college courses and people that are
information based decision making courses, like we don't make decisions
(17:52):
without good data. You know, we need data. Everybody's into data,
you know, computers, data, everything, technology, It's all about data,
data accumulation, data analysis, trends, demographics, everything else. Well, I'm
going to take all of that right this second and
make it as simple as it can be through what
(18:14):
I just said. If you know more about what your
future is going to look like and can identify things
that are going to be the obstacles, things that are
crossing your path that you're going to have to deal with,
you won't get caught off guard so much. You won't
end up being in a dilemma, a panic situation. You'll
(18:39):
be able to have thought about it ahead of time
and made arrangements so that you'll be able to not
have to have it break your stride in the path
that you're cruising on down And so here's the simplest example.
And then I think we'll go right into explaining the
myth that I think people are ready for. And once again,
(19:00):
if you understand what we're saying, call me, create a
personal relationship with me. Do the same with Johnny. In
other words. If you like what we're showing you right,
think dot org r I G e H T t
h I n K dot O r G. That's how
(19:23):
you can contact me and Johnny and we will do
y' all know yet that I like to communicate. I
enjoy conversation. I like to talk with people. It's not
just that I like to present. I like to engage.
If you are a person that calls me up. And
I've had many many over the years that I've made
friends with call me up and say, Steve, I like
(19:45):
what you're talking about. But here's my situation. Do you
think that this would work or can you help me?
We're here for you now, Johnny. Here's an example we
talked about. We talked about Christmas, getting ready for Christmas,
you know, And here's the example. Single mom, really hard
working elementary school kids. I've touched from this before in
(20:09):
previous shows, but I'm go deeper and she's working hard.
This is my mother, by the way. She was a
salesgirl an apartment store, single mom, elementary school kid, me
and my sister, and she's you know, she's riding the
bus to work and I'm going through her coins that
she keeps in her change first for my coin collection.
But you know, she wouldn't let me have those coins.
If it was a date that I needed to fill
(20:29):
in my coin collection, as long as I could replace
it with the coin of the same value, she let
me have it. And you know, so that was a
good lesson for me, is that my mother needed her change,
but she let me look through it. I looked through
her change every day and I pulled out coins that
I had dates, and every now and then, I'd say, Mom,
cutting somebody's grass tomorrow. Can I give you the fifty
(20:51):
cent that I owe you after I collect from the
people that are going to pay me for cutting their grass.
She said, yeah, you can, and then we always did it.
She never had to ask me where's that fifty cent?
Because I had good credit with my mom. So here's
the thing, though, single Mom, Christmas is coming, and it's
(21:11):
December the third, a little bit, you know, one day
or two days longer than three weeks till Christmas. I
could say December the fourth and make it a perfect
three registre. Christmas is the name of the story. Single
Mom wakes up and she just almost has a panic
attack in the morning, goes I haven't started doing the
(21:34):
Christmas shopping, and my money is really tight because last
month the washing machine broke and we had to buy that,
and I don't have hardly any extra money, and I
don't want to disappoint my children at Christmas. Well that's
really a bad situation to have. Somebody only have three
weeks to Christmas and they want to make a nice
(21:55):
Christmas for their children. But what if in August that's
scene woman she was settled down drinking a cup of
coffee or whatever she did in the morning, when she's relaxed,
on top of her life. Just remember that commercial smooth
Calm and collect it. You know, the woman's the woman
is on top of her life. She's not letting anything
(22:17):
push her too hard. Here she knows who she is,
and she says, it's first of August. You know, I'm
gonna start setting aside twenty dollars out of every paycheck
she gets paid weekly in this particular job. So what
do is she got August, September, Optember, NOVEMBERY, she's got
four months. She's got four months? Is what thirteen weeks
(22:38):
and three months? She's got seventeen or eighteen weeks? Twenty dollars.
Whatever the number that gives her. You know, that gives
her three hundred and fifty dollars. Maybe she put a
little more. You know, it's not too hard to get
twenty dollars set aside out of aut a out of
your paycheck. Bring that to modern times. We're talking about
the nineteen fifties right now for me. But yeah, you know,
(23:00):
I'll put one hundred bucks in paycheck. You know whatever,
You're going to accumulate a fund, a savings of your money.
And it doesn't have to be in the bank. It
can just be taken out and put it in your
in the in the envelope, put it in a in
a jar, whatever. But now you can start along the way.
(23:20):
Know that I've got some money over here. And whenever
you see a good whenever you see a good U sale,
whenever you see a good purchase, whenever you see an opportunity,
because you're thinking about the gift giving and what you're
going to do to make that Christmas, there's Johnnie. Let
(23:40):
me turn it over you because I've used this story
hundreds of times in my teachings, and I go around
the room and I ask people, Hey, if you were
thinking about your Christmas giving in August. What types of
things could you do than just having enough money when
(24:02):
you want to do your shopping in early December, you
can multiply, Johnny.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Hit it, Okay, So I'm going to use a person
can use the same scenario for anything, such as right now,
my family is when I say my family, and tomorrow
they's seven of us. So all of us are planning
on being going to Disney when money streeduling is in
twenty twenty two. So we know what we're going to
(24:30):
do and we're set aside money for that. So it
can be for Christmas, it can be for your vacation,
if you're planning a way out, It can be for
repairs of a household. It can be for any of
those things. Because you need to still have a university
done right. So what I do, what I'm doing, and
what we talked about, is how do we look at
(24:54):
what we're spending now to set aside those resources. If
it's not already in your you're not already in the excess, right,
So then you can look at your coffee, you know,
how do you how often do you spend it? That's
the reason we're asking me to track it. If you
don't know where your money is. When you start looking
(25:15):
for money to set aside twenty dollars or fifty dollars or.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
One hundred dollars a month, you don't know where to
get it from.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You come to it from a place of black instead
of from a place of I know I can That's
what Stieve said.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
He said, I can do.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
So when I looked at my budget, because I have one,
because don't teach stuff, don't don't get training for people
that are not doing look at training, I'm just saying,
get careful with that.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So I'm looking at.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
My resources right and I'm looking in saying, okay, I'm
just going to put this amount of money aside, which
is great. But I went back to my budget to
say where's that money at.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So that's what I'm doing. I'm going in and I'm
not going.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
To the grocery store or often because sometimes I get,
you know, in the grocery store and buy extra stuff.
I'm going from my list and I'm only buying what's
on the list because I'm prepared to walk into the
store now in twenty right now today, you don't even
have to go inside most.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Stores if you're going to D Days, you can order
it online and you don't.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
You're not even tempted by that, right you know, you
only have what's on the list. Even Walmart has things,
has a thing where they'll drop the groceries off. So
now you're saving time and money. So remember though, if
there's any fees associated with that, that you're going to
use it enough so that the fee associated with it
(26:46):
is covered. It's going to It's not just something you're
paying for and you're not going to use it. So
I'm looking at what am I doing now? So, like
I said, I stop going to Starbucks as much right,
which is and then I don't go to paneras often.
So there's some little things that I've done, like instead
(27:06):
of maybe going twice a week or three times a week,
now only go once. I still get Starbucks, but I
do it at home. So look at where you can
downsize a little bit and make it work. And this
is the This is a tip that I'll give you.
If you're doing this and you're married, or you or
you have kids, bring in the whole family to do this.
(27:29):
See how everybody can join in. Because if you go
out and you you do fast food three times a
week or whatever, right, take it down to two. But
let your family know what you're doing and why you're
doing it, and then they'll be on board, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
So that's the.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Key to engage and communicate is supposed to be this thing.
The first person that you have to communicate is find
out what you desire, and then you share it with
the people that you love in your household that are
partnering with you to ensure that this happens. Some people
are saving for our house. If you're that person, then
(28:14):
talk about it. It's not about we're not telling you
what to save for. We're telling you that you have
the power to transform your life in a way that's
going to make a difference. When you identify and seeks
that when you reflect, when you decide, when you have action,
(28:35):
when you monitor right monitoring what you're doing, you make adjustments.
That's what I just talked about. Then you alter what
you're doing, and then you refocus, read, focus, looking, relok, relook.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
At it again, and then you plan. And those are
the things.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
If you didn't get them the first time, you want
to make sure you write those down because the are
key bullets, are key steps key action steps that you'll
need as you move forward.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Thank you Steve, Thank you Johnny.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
In between the refocus and the plan, explore alternatives. That's
when you start to get creative again. But just just
to put the final spin on the Christmas shopping story,
three weeks to Christmas. If the woman who the single
mom knows in August she can save money because the
same purchases that she's going to be getting she wants
(29:31):
to get some clothes basically for one of her children,
she can start shopping months ahead of time and wait
for the right deal, get the exact right thing, have
a better selection. She can do flea markets. That's a
big answer I get from a lot of people. But
once her eyes are open, this is the whole point
(29:52):
I'm trying to get. Once her eyes are open and
she's looking, because she's got a plan of where she
wants to end up, she's not going to be as
hurried or as rushed, and then she can do everything
that you said about maybe not spending so much on
coffee or different things because she knows. But if a
(30:12):
person is starting to do a discipline saving and she's
got more time to shop more efficiently, get better sales,
better deals, et cetera. She can make things. Maybe maybe
she's a crocheer and she might want to make a
sweater or something for her for someone as a gift.
So when you have that extra freedom to not be
in a panic mode, you'll do better. So now let
(30:35):
me just launch into why looking at it on paper
and again, once you get it down to where you
put yourself in your budget, you don't have to look
at it every day, not even every week or month
if you're living within your means, once you know and
have done this reality check of looking at where am
(30:56):
I with what it is, the way that how, the
way how I'm living? In other words, am I living
the way that I intended to? Am I staying within
these budgets? Do I have enough money to keep doing
these extras that I do. I like to go to
the to the restaurant two or three times a week?
Can I afford to do that? And so when you
look further out, you know, maybe months a year, you'll
(31:21):
see things. And so that trip that I took Switzerland,
by the way, see, that was just the best example
that I can come up with. When I was nineteen
years old, I had a dream not so much a dream.
I dreamed about going into far away places. You know.
I read as a child, Tales of the Arabian Nights,
(31:42):
foreign lands. You know the movie Heidi when she's in
Switzerland with her grandfather. You know, I always, for some reason,
wanted to do a lot of travel, and ultimately I
went into the travel business, can executive travel business. Did
a lot of traveling, but I was motivated to find
a way to do some of the things that I
(32:04):
wanted to do and not just fought. I knew too
many college graduates right now and then that they get
a job right out of college, which is fine. I'm
not discouraging that. You know, that's a very stable life,
of course, but they never do some of the things
that they wanted to do because now that they're working,
(32:25):
they're they're they're tied down, and they can't do all
that they wanted to do with a two week vacation
a year, so to speak, and and just on weekends.
So decide what you want to do, make plans to
get it, get it down on paper, call Steve and
Johnny to talk about it. That's what we're here for, Okay, Johnny.
Before the show started today, I wanted you to see
(32:47):
the spreadsheet that that I'm talking about now, teaching cash
cash in, cash out, weekly budget, how money comes in,
how money goes out the last several weeks, and I
do have sheets that illustrate that BEAUTI plea to understand
the concept. But I developed a tool for myself years ago,
(33:10):
and I pulled up one on my computer from ten
years ago, November of twenty eleven, that I pulled up
one of my cash flow projections. See, we're going from
cash flow budget to cash flow projections. The difference between
budget and projections is a budget's kind of looking at
what you should be able to do, to see how
(33:33):
you spend in your money and can I afford this
or that. That's true, they're very very similar a budget
and a projection. They're pretty much for the same purpose,
but there's nuances in the differences. Cash Flow projections is
looking into the future and determining if the course that
(33:54):
you're on will be able to fund fund the lifestyle
that you were going after, will you have enough money
down the road. And so the first thing to do
is to take take the budget game that we did
weeks ago and list just make a list on a
(34:16):
on a on a piece of paper, on a spreadsheet,
make a list of everything that you spend money on,
that goes out of your pocketbook, that goes out of
your bank account, that goes out you know, how you
use your money and organize it the uh the topic
paper on keeping track of your spending is where this starts.
(34:38):
Take the same information you have there and put that
in the left the first column of a spreadsheet column
A of a spreadsheet, and then on the top part
put cash in and then list all of the money
that you know you're going to be getting, say in
the next year, what are my sources of money that's
(35:00):
coming in the first one that standard is a job.
You know, what's my paycheck? And so put down in
column to the frequency or the timing of when this
money comes in. You know, like every Hey, I'm going
to get Social Security and I'll tell you a date
starts in August. I've waited years for this. It's a
(35:20):
god sent for me. I'm going to get a check
put in a bank account automatic deposit from the United
States Government Department of Social Security on the second Wednesday
of every month for the rest of my life. Yeah,
that's a hallelujah, because eight years ago I could have
(35:42):
started drawing it at a discount. And I analyzed my
finances the way we're talking right now, and the answer
I came up with was I had literally thirty different
people advisors, CPAs, business friends, bankers, people that I was
into professionally, and people in my life, family and family
(36:03):
and close friends. They knew I was struggling because of
my cancer. My money was very very difficult. Well, good,
you can start drawing SOE security at sixty two full
Social Security benefits right around sixty six, I guess. But
if you take it at sixty two, it's thirty percent
less than it is when you take it at the
full amount. And the reason that a lot of people
(36:26):
told me to take it was because I had a
medical diagnosis with an incurable cancer that gave me a
short life expectancy. And CPA even did the numbers for
me and said, Steve, if you don't take it and
you only draw it for a couple years, you're the
total amount that you're going to receive from the government
(36:48):
is going to be you know, in other words, don't wait,
because what if you wait for the higher amount but
you only draw it for two years, well before I
go any further. One of the biggest advantages of waiting
is if you have a spouse that you love and
care about, if you wait, they get a higher benefit
after you're not here. And so my lawyer and friend, Todd,
(37:08):
he told me just the other day when I told
him it starts next month, qualified in July, get my
first check in August. He said, well, you know, Steve,
you did a great thing for your wife because her
check is going to be much higher if you're not here.
And so that was a compliment because he was one
of the ones that pushed me really hard to start
drawing at sixty two because I needed the money desperately.
(37:29):
But the reason that I made a decision not to
start drawing it was because my financial circumstances were so
difficult at the time that the smaller amount the Social
Security that I could have started drawing it wouldn't have
changed my overall situation. So I said, the decision that
I made was now it's not enough, I need to wait,
(37:50):
and I'm going to just find a way to make money.
I motivated myself by looking at my alternative decisions I
could have made thirteen hundred dollars in thirteen fifty seven
is what I would have drawn at sixty two. But
the point is I waited, and then at sixty six
the same people were staying start drawing. Announcede if you
qualify now, and gets you so scaredy I said, no,
I'm going to wait and let it get to the
(38:11):
full growth, which is at seventy seven percent a year.
So it's over twice as much as it would have
been if I'd taken it eight years ago. So I'm
going to celebration now because the amount of money that's
going to come in is a material difference in the
way that I can live my life. Now. It's going
to reduce my pressure. But I looked at that. So
the spreadsheet is list how your money's coming in. And
(38:34):
my example the spreadsheet I'm doing now, I put in
the second column, second second Wednesday of every month. Okay, now,
just to give you the example at the very top,
this is the key to the whole sheet. You're going
to have where the money's coming from the date that
you expect to get it, and then you're going to
(38:56):
put weeks all the way out there at the top
actual calendar dates. The one I showed you this morning, Johnny.
November the twelfth, twenty eleven to November the eighteenth, twenty
eleven is week one, and then it just goes to
the next week, November the nineteenth, and November the twenty twenty,
(39:19):
twenty fifth or whatever, twenty sixth, and it goes on
down the road. And I dragged that, and so I
have a sheet that's got that one was actually a
fourteen month sheet. I just did it over over like
fifty six columns, fifty seven columns or whatever it was.
And then the SOB security example is if I know
that I'm getting on the second week of every month,
(39:39):
I don't just go to the second calendar week when
you're looking at the top of the dates and look
for the not the first week of each month, but
the second week and put that amount in that box
in that cell on a spreadsheet. So now I'm starting
to build this big looking matrix puzzle. Okay, paycheck, let's
(40:00):
say that you're getting five hundred bucks a week, or
let's make it one thousand dollars a week net paycheck.
I'm dealing with cash net paycheck, So you just put
one thousand dollars all the way out now, when you're
looking at your your numbers, you might say, you know
what I ought to be getting a raise. Well, you're
going to be motivated when you see your numbers to
(40:21):
say I need a raise. You know you asked early out,
what are you spending that raise on? Is it changing
your lifestyle? Is it making it easier and better for you? Okay,
so you list your incomes, but let me give you
a couple examples of your incomes. Your paycheck, your social security,
your your moonlighting, your part time work, you know, whatever
(40:41):
you like to do. And see, that's another decision you're
going to make here. If you're looking for some major
purchase down the road and you realize that you're watching television,
you know, seven nights a week, Well maybe if you
think you could use an extra two hundred dollars in
your budget a month, twenty four hundred dollars a year,
maybe you're willing to get some out of a part
time job. In ords, you can determine how much additional
(41:04):
income you need when you see the answer that we're
going to get to in a few minutes at the
bottom of the page, So you might put your part
time job in there. If people owe you money that
you're that you expect them to pay you back. Because
a friend borrowed a couple hundred bucks because you really
were there for him, put that on the sheet if
you want to pay it back. If you don't want
(41:25):
to get paid back because it was a gift, don't
put it on a sheet. Tax refund, now here's a
really good use of projecting your money. If you look
at the answer and I haven't shown you the expenses yet,
and show you how it goes. You know, one week's
how much is available this week. At the end of
the week, that's the that's the starting point for this
(41:46):
for the next week. That's that's your beginning balance of
the next week. And so I'll get into that in
the moment, but I just want to stay on this point.
Your tax refund. If you're a person that likes to
just have forced savings, have a whole lot taken out
because you know you haven't been managing your money properly.
Not a lot of real high level finance people will
(42:08):
chastise you and say, don't let the government hold on
to your money, get it back yourself, don't overpay your worthholding,
take it and put it into a savings Well, savings
ain't going to get you too much these days, so
I think it's better to build a principle. And if
you're weak with how you hold on the money, you
let it slip out of your fingers for too many
things that are frivolous or unnecessary. Get a two thousand
(42:30):
dollars tax refund each year because that will help you
straighten out your life when April fifteenth comes around. But
if you know that you want to plan something next
year early in the year, do your tax return early.
You have control of when that refund comes in. So
if you put it down there at April fifteenth, because
(42:52):
you filed by April fifteenth, and that refund comes in
three weeks later, do your tax turn in February and
get that money coming in first of March. You have
control of your timing. You'll see it like this. So
put all your income up there. You know, refunds, things
like insurance, you know, like whatever your income is. If
you're saving and you've got investments or you've got whatever,
(43:18):
just build your own income. I'm just showing you how
to do it. I don't know what your situation is.
That's why I don't like to give out a pre
prepopulated form to do this, learn how to do it.
So the beginning is the top section is your incomes.
But then the next part goes down and it's how
your money goes out. Take all of your household expenses first.
(43:38):
Put your rent or your mortgage, all of your utilities,
all of those kind of things like lay those in there,
things that you have to pay every month. And then
at the bottom of which you have to pay every month,
add things that you pay that you're necessary, like an
insurance premium. I pay mine in six months. Every six
months I pay a premium. Put that in there too,
So get all your cash out out. This is the
(44:01):
same exercise we did when we did the Managing Managing
your topic paper number five, where it was all about
keeping track of your spending. Now put that out, put
the date that it's due. Put the date of those
in charge premiums that are due. Put the date that
your mortgage payment is, and column to put the date
(44:21):
in your mortgage payment you intend to make that payment on,
whatever the date is, And then go into the sheet
and put that amount in the calendar and you'll see
it out there. If it's doing it for a year,
you'll see twelve of those spread out over there. And
then after that cash cash expenses in your household bills, food, gasoline,
(44:43):
for your car, entertainment expense. You can break down every
expense you want to as deep as you want. And
this budget I did in twenty eleven, I had my
money was pretty good, so instead of going into entertainment
expense or credit card payment, I just paid a lot
(45:04):
of things through my credit card and then I paid
the bill at the end of the month. And I said,
if I pay a certain amount of money once a
month to my credit card, I will use that to
cover my entertainment, my birthday gifts, the things that I
don't really want to have to track too carefully. But
if I was in a mode where my money was
really really tight, I would lay my budget out by
(45:25):
line item for birthday gifts. I taught earlier in this series.
Put the actual date of every person that you're going
to give a gift to, just so you see it once,
and then put the date when you're going to spend
that money. When their birthday is, when your anniversary is,
when you're buying different things, and then when you get
all that done, put your formulas in and certain the
(45:46):
line at the top that says beginning balance, and put
how much money you're starting with in your different bank
accounts that are there. You do not have to put
savings and other things on this sheet when you're tracking
the money that is disposable income. In other words, when
I put my bank accounts on here, I'm not putting
(46:08):
how much is a in a stock account an investment
account that I started last year, because I'm not touching
that money. My long term stavings is not part of
this projection. That's a use of my money. Like if
I say five hundred dollars a month to put into
my into my mutual fund, I don't show that as
a source of income that's available in my balance. It's
(46:31):
a cash out of my budget that's being invested over
on the side. It's there for a for very difficult
times that I have to cash it out, but I'm
not showing it as money available for this projection. So
the first the first line is beginning balance, how much
money I've got in wherever I've got that's available to
(46:51):
me that I bring. Then I bring in all my
sources that are coming in and I get a subtotal.
This is money that's available this week, and then I
put all the expenses and I see the ones that
have to be paid in this week, and then I
total those I subtracted available, and then it tells me
if I'm plus or minus to being able to keep
(47:13):
my head above water, or if I'm don't have enough.
That's the first decision point. Is it negative or is
it positive. If it's negative, you need to not spend
some money on something. You might need to get a
part time job. You might need to be thinking about
paying less rent, move if you have to. Bottom line
(47:33):
is what you have at the end of that week
for all that you're obligated to do that's in your budget.
Taking out your cash a certain amount for your weekly
food budget, and how much you spend on your gasoline
for your car. That becomes the beginning balance of the
next week. And so when you do this and look
at it every year, you'll see into the future. And
then if you have a surplus that's getting big. If
(47:56):
you're making if you're living well within your means, that's
where you now have the joy of sitting back saying
I'm doing really good since I've been monitoring this. Now
I've got two thousand dollars. It's going to be there
in seven months because I'm coming up ahead each week.
My weekly balance is growing, growing, growing. This is where
(48:18):
you want to be, by the way. Then you say, well,
I'm going to add an investment account. So you pop
a line into what you're looking at and just say
investment account. And then you say, I'm going to put
I'm going to put three hundred dollars a month, five
hundred dollars a month, whatever the number, and then put
when you want to start doing it, and then pull
(48:39):
that money out, spend some of that surplus in a
positive way, or saved to go to Disney with my
family next year. You'll see where you're at. And then
just segregate those funds. Put a line in there, take
physically the money and put it wherever you want to
set it aside so that it doesn't get merged or
commingled into the US. At the very end of this,
(49:02):
you sit back and you look at it, and if
everything's really good, you're good. If everything's really good, you're good,
and you can make some decisions on alternative ways to
use this income and keeping your expenses in line, or
add another expense, or add another savings program, add another investment,
(49:24):
give another gift, increase your times, Johnny, I've been doing
this for twenty five thirty years, and it's the very
best gift that I want to leave behind to the
world because it works and it gets me on top
of my life. And I have to tell you my
(49:47):
finances are very complicated for myself because I fight two
terminal illnesses. I have a lot of doctor bills, a
lot of things. But when I get to where I
have something coming up, For example, I'm going to be
taking a trip when I'm okay with the pandemic travel,
I'm going to be taking a trip to go out
to the West Coast to visit my daughter and her
(50:08):
husband and my grandkids. I'm long overdue, it's just a
pandemic that's stopping me. But when I take that trip,
I'm going to need a I'm going to need a
budget one thousand and fifteen hundred dollars depending on my
mode of travel and how long I go. When I
do this projection, I look at it and I go, well,
(50:29):
if I want to go in four months, I better
start putting my money together now and so when I
get a lot of things, I do my budget generally
around May or June, just to kind of tidy it up.
Because I mentioned in an earlier, earlier episode, I got
(50:49):
nine people in my family that have birthdays or my
anniversary with my wife or whatever, all in a seven
eight week period. So that's going to cost whatever my
budget is. And you can get real detail, you know,
spend whatever you can afford. But my wife and I
sort of have a be fair with everybody, be consistent.
(51:12):
I show favoritism, so we know how much we generally
spend for each of the different family members to keep
them all in kind of a different groupings Like grandkids.
We like the budget a certain amount for each grandkid,
and we do that at birthday season, we do that
in summertime. You know whatever. But you will not know
what you're doing with your life if you don't take
(51:32):
a look every now and then to tune it up.
And I've been doing it forever, and I can make
major decisions in my life. Can I afford to stay
in my house when I fight my cancer? Or will
I be able to hold on long enough till I
get that fat soz to security check. That's going to
be coming in when I turn seventy. But I use
it differently too. I know when I've got to go
(51:54):
out and get a new client because my money is
not going to be okay in a couple months, and
so I like to give my self as much lead
time to know what I'm doing and to be real
kind of straight about it. I know how much raise
that I need when I go ask for a raise.
I know how much I'm not willing to accept if
I'm going to stay at a certain employer. In other words,
(52:17):
but you have to give value to get paid for
what you are asking for. So, Johnny, I think I
laid it out about as much as I could. Whatever
your thoughts or comments or reaction to what I just did,
thank you for being a patient listener on that. But
it works, Johnny. I live my whole life doing what
(52:39):
I just said I do. And the example I gave
today is I reviewed with you just so you'd understand
the concept and see it down once from something I
did all over eleven years ago. Well it's actually twenty eleven.
Was ten years in November that I did this sheet.
But I use that sheet and update it whenever I
want to same format.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
I think the information the categories.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Are very powerful, and I even like really the flexibility
of people realizing that I'm counting for everything that comes
in and then a counting for everything that goes out,
and the planning and the restructuring and the refocusing and
(53:26):
all of that.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Right, I really like that piece.
Speaker 3 (53:29):
And there are some people that are getting let's say,
child support or they're giving out child support.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Well, either way you need to account for that.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
There's some people. And when you do the child support,
because I was a single parent, I said, man, I
guess I am.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
My daughter's grown.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
But I'm saying so the deal with that is, at
some point I didn't need and I want to stress
that word, I did not need. What her father was
giving us giving her actually wasn't for me or for her.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
In the household.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
So when that happened, I took the funds and put
it in an account for her so that when she
went to college or when she did things in her future,
that those resources were there to support and help her.
So it was a separate account that I did. So
there is some things that you mentioned. One of the
(54:27):
other things that you mentioned that I thought was so
powerful is The whole thing was amazing, but there was
key points for me. It was giving your self rates
because most people don't look at what they can offer
to increase or build an additional stream of interime. So
(54:48):
one of the things that I'm gonna say is this
is that look at your finances and make the decisions
because i mean, basically Steve said if you were spending
to much for the house, if you're spending too much
in different areas, you can make adjustments, right, and the
adjustments don't have to be permanent, but they need to
(55:09):
get you to a healthy place.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Now.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
The other thing is there's not the two ways to
balance about can we just be real? But this is
a reality check, right, it's just income in and expenses out.
If you want to live like you're living and don't
want to make any changes, we still say that do this,
(55:31):
but look for a way that you can increase your income.
And I'm not just saying low to your boss and
explore raise. I'm saying that look at yourself and say
what service where you said if you're sitting in front
of the TV for a few hours a week, you
might want to go get a part time job because
you don't want to give up anything, no problem, it's
(55:51):
an exchange. You're going to have to either give up
time or respecture if there's something to make your budget balance.
And then really you're going beyond valance. You want to
have access at the end of every month. And Steve
mentioned it, and I want to reiterate it that you
(56:12):
want to add in saying that you're going to give yourself.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
You want to build an account for savings.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
You want to build that in it so that just
like you pay everybody else, that you pay yourself right,
you want to do those things. And so from a
personal perspective, as we come and wrap this up, is
this is what I'll tell you is that this opportunity
to take your control back is something you must choose.
(56:45):
It's something you choose.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
It's not even.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Though we desire it and we would love.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
To fix it, you have to continuously consistently choose it
so that it becomes part.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
Of your lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
It's and let me say this in addition to that,
is a budget is not to restrict you cash flow
budget or the way your cash flow projection.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
It is not to restrict you.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
Is actually to empower you because you are empowered when
you have information.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
You are empowered. When you know what.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
You have right in your hands and you know what's
coming in. You become empowered because you don't want to
look at somebody else and say, well, it's their fault. No,
it's not Make a choice. You don't want to shame yourself.
Don't shame yourself. It's not about that. Make a choice,
(57:44):
reclaim your life, reclaim what you say you want in
such a way that you are empowered to make decisions. Now,
you're going to make some decisions anyway, but isn't it
good to know what the impact is going to be?
Speaker 2 (58:00):
And I'm gonna say something simple, it's really funny. And
if you.
Speaker 3 (58:04):
Follow me on TikTok a Mama day on TikTok. So
if you follow me on TikTok, what happens is this.
I went on a I went on, I've been walking
in the morning and I decided not to do what
I normally do is pull my hair back.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Now, this is a simple.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
This is a simple When I the wind was blowing
and it was human outside. By the time I came in,
I was scared. I mean literally I had to get
on show this morning. So I had to go, oh
my gosh. Matter of fact, I looked at my side,
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (58:37):
That will happen in your life sometime with your budget,
something will happen that you did not get and you
thought was a great plan. It was for your benefit.
The walking is for your benefit, right, but something beyond
your what you thought it didn't come out that way.
So you have to decide at that point what are
you going to do to fix it.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
You are not a.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
Victim in your finances, You're not a victim with your income.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
You are empowered.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
So order these sheets that we're talking about and start
walking out your plan.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
Reach out to us because this is the deal.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
If you have questions or things like that, that's what
the show is about, so that.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
We can answer your questions.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
Right, So empower yourself in such a way that not
just your life with the impact, but everybody around you.
And this is my final statement. Most people say they
don't want to make a decision, but do you realize
and not making even decision officially is a decision. You're
(59:43):
indecision is a decision. The fact that you won't move
forward is a decision. So what we're asking you to
do is make a decision for life. You choose choose
life lay before you life and another in not so
(01:00:05):
much life. I'm not gonna say death, but let's say
the death of your finances or the impact or the
destruction of your finances.
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Right, that's what you have before.
Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
You, and we're going to even give you the answer
to the question choose, like, just choose what that's what
we're at. Choose like to view your family and your
next step, choose.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Like Johnny, thanks for being with me. I appreciate I
appreciate everybody for bearing with the way that I kind
of kind of talk through what I'm trying to show you.
If if you're still with me, I there's a whole
lot more we can do. The future. Week is going
to start getting into making it better now that you
(01:00:49):
see what it looks like, uh, debt consolidation, improving your
credit and if and if all those are in order,
which many of you that are that are participating, it's
in the order. You're you're good, You're stable, You're you're
you're you're better than me and Johnny at handling this stuff.
You know you're mature, But if you're like that, build
(01:01:10):
build your estate, build a build, build a future for
succeeding generations. It's endless what you can do when you're
on top of it. Johnny, you made me think a
real simple little analogy, and this is the last thing
I'm going to say. It's another question. Would you rather
be the ping pong ball that's going back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth from one side to
(01:01:32):
the other, or would you like to be the paddle
that's got the hand that makes that point get scored
by directing that ping pong ball against your opponent. We're
not talking about competition or opponents here. We're just trying
to help you take control of your life. So, Johnny,
it was great today. Thank you for your input, thank
you for your responses. Everyone, have a wonderful week today.
(01:01:54):
God bless you. Thanks for listening to right thinking with
Steve Cooper. I'll look forward to being with you again
next week. And remember, don't quit plan ahead. It will
get better. God bless you, and have a great week.
There must be lies burning brighter somewhere. Got to be
birs hi.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
In the sky.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Good morning, Welcome to Right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I'm
your host, Steve Copeland, and thank you for tuning in.
Let's have a great day. Good morning, everybody, glad to
be with you. Well, we're on episode two thirty one.
Right Thinking with Steve Copeland is very pleased to announce
(00:49):
that this week's show is called reality Check with guests
Johnny Lloyd. Tune in and here Steve and Johnny continue
their series Right Thinking, Life, Money Relationships this week with
the sixth episode. Well, the way that you handle your
money work for you in the future or will it
came in on you? Step and Johnny will teach you
(01:12):
how to find out? Johnny, how do you like that
theme for today?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I actually love the theme for today.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I think it says so much about where we're going
because it is about a reality check.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, the reality check. I thought of a whole lot
of different ways to say it. But you know, we're
six six episodes in on this series and the thing
that we've been doing is we've tried to give a
foundational look at what do you do with your life?
How does it affect your behavior with how you spend
(01:47):
your money? Rather, and I got a very overview question
for you today, but it's going to lead into why
we're doing this particular theme today. We're showing people how
to track their money, how to think about what they
want out of life, how it relates to how they
handle their money, and to show them that if you're
(02:07):
on top of your money, you you have a very
good chance of maybe going after some of those dreams
and goals that you set for yourself. But if you
don't monitor your money and things like that, you're probably
not gonna going to have great success. You know. It's
an overall state of awareness about yourself, knowing yourself. But
this is not a philosophy class. It's more of a
(02:30):
you know, money management kind of a program that we're
doing here. But I got to thinking, why do so
many people shy away from taking a deeper look at
how they handle their finances. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw
this one at you. You're ready, Johnny, What is the
(02:50):
basic difference between money, the term the word money and
the word finances.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Money is a tool. Money is just a tool. If
people look at money it's only a tool that represents
your finances, right. I mean, finances are more encompassing than
that is the management of If I would look at
the dictionary, it would be great time to get the
dictionary and find out what the dictionary says regarding that.
(03:22):
I don't know if you have that up Steve or not,
but I think when you look at it, let me
talk about for me when I managed.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
When I look at first of.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
All, management is only overseeing or empowering yourself with the
capacity and capability you have with it.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That's management, right, That's not leading.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
When I think of finance or the elements of wealth building, then.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I think of like you would think of a leader.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
A leader that knows the way, shows the way, grows
the way, grows, their way to their next level, grows
their way to the mission vision and purpose of the
organization or the person, because we all should have mission
vision and purpose as well. So those are the things
I think of when I think of the difference between
(04:18):
just money and finances, I think it's it's it's how
you manage, how you control, how you grow, how you
look at your future versus just your present tense as
a tool.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Now, what do you.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Think see that's that's good. You know, I've noticed that
the last couple of weeks, I haven't I haven't thanked
and complimented use as much as I did in the
early couple sessions they were having. I did a lot
of times saying how wonderful it is for me to
have you share this this series with me, because it's
(04:57):
not me just speaking you know what I teach. It's
a chance to have it be like back and forth,
you know, interaction between us. And you know, I don't
know that I point out to everybody, but every one
of these shows that we do is uh, you know,
they're they're they're basically unrehearsed. They're spontaneous. And I'm drawing
(05:17):
upon Johnny's whole career and and and life background as
it relates to experiences and and and her financial background
or accounting background or career, because I know that no
matter what I throw at you, Johnny, uh, spontaneous like
I just did, that you're going to give a very
(05:38):
very correct answer. When I say correct everybody, There's many
things that have different answers, but correct, and that it
applies to everybody because it's honest, it's truthful, and people
will see that it's not just a rehearsed research type
of a of an answer. It's because that's who you
(05:58):
are and and that's really That might have been a
long way for me to say this, but but Johnny,
when people want to to get motivated or learn from
someone else, you hope that they're not a buy my
book kind of a personality where they're just trying to
give you something that's good for them, but maybe not
(06:19):
really be that good for the person that they're trying to,
you know, to give it to. In other words, I
want to know that people that I'm working with, that
I go to to mentor me and so forth, I
want to know that they're sincere and that they care
about me. And so my answer to money and finances
I thought about it. I thought about it right before
we got on the air this morning. And here's here's
(06:40):
the reason. I asked the question. When I did the
title to the show, and I said, well, the way
that you handle your money work for you in the future,
I started to put, well, the way that you manage
your finances work for you in the future. So that's
the question I ask you, and you right into without
(07:01):
me even giving you any preference about you went into
what managing things are and the reason that you manage things.
My definition or my answer for the difference between money
and finances is yes, money is the tool. We take money,
we do things with it. We get money coming in
through a thing called income, We create income sources. Those
(07:24):
income sources give us to where somebody might owe us something,
or we might be expecting something. It might be a
check in the mail, it could be a tax refund,
it could be But I spend a lot of time
on these fundamentals for the last five weeks that we're
doing this talking about cash flow, budgeting, money in, money out.
(07:45):
But your finances go broader, deeper, more into what it
is that you really want to do with your life.
You know, this whole series is life, money, relationships. And
so I'm going to go from money to finances by
simply saying this, your finances is a way that you
(08:09):
take what your ability to do things is as it
relates to needing, needing income, money, credit. We're going to
get into the future weeks into why credit is so important,
Why not carrying too much debt is so important. So
debt is part of your finances, but it may not.
(08:32):
It needs money to stay on top of it, but
it's not the word money. And when you do retirement planning,
when you do major purchases, when you take out a
mortgage to buy a house, it takes money to qualify
for a mortgage. You have to have credit with the
(08:54):
money that you're earning to be enough. But money is
just part of the equation. Finances is the term that
is being used to talk about more of the big
picture of what goes on in your life that relates
more directly to achievement of your goals and the fulfillment
of your dreams that you've had growing in you your
(09:17):
whole life. So my answer is money is the tool
exactly what you laid out and managing your money. Getting
into finances is taking that tool and using it to
do exactly what you articulated, you know, with growing things,
(09:37):
et cetera. No, it's it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So I have let me intget for just a second,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So when I as you were speaking, and I was
looking at something that says, there's part of what we're
teaching is also about consistency, is about the timeliness of
spending you money when you spend it right, Because we're
doing the money piece as far as the budget or
(10:05):
doing the cash flow, so you can see the timeliness
of it and the justification your why why would you
have a state as cant Why are you building for retirement?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Why?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
All that right?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And then the documentation is what you're teaching with the
six worksheets that you have out there that they need
to really download and start working on so that they
can build this in their own personal lives or their business.
This applies to your business. If you are a small
business owner or a large business owner, this applies to you.
(10:39):
And so the other thing is it also certifies, which
is interesting. It certifies or reconfirms what you say is
important to you. A few episodes ago, I talked about
if somebody gives me their checkbook, their different card, something
I can tell you your whole life if everything went
through that, because what you spend your money on, how
(11:02):
you manage it, and how you move forward certifies what
you really hold dear to you. Are you spending in
what category, what you're doing, and all of that. Okay,
so now the money piece, which is really cool, is
about where Steve and I are teaching you about savings.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
We're teaching you about investing.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
All things you just at, financial protection, tax savings, retirement planning,
all of those things. Don't miss this opportunity to really
impact your life in such a way because the lack
of things in your life will draw stress. We talked
(11:44):
about it in the first episode, and stress will impact
your body.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So that's why this is so important. It's not just.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
About the money management. It's not just about teaching you
the finance piece. It is deeper than that. It's a
life management system because when you do well with your resources,
your family does better. Your kids pick up the same habits,
you impact yourself in your life generationally, and I know
(12:15):
it's work. However, I'm going to tell you from experience.
Steve and I have experience. That's why we're doing it
this way. We have experienced real life experience where you know,
we were in places where it didn't work or we
couldn't work it or whatever was happening and are now.
So we're giving you and sharing with you let's go there,
(12:37):
sharing with you opportunities that you can move forward. We're
just we're just guiding you through your process of building
wealth and being positioned in a greater place for your life.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So Steve, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Thank you. So Johnny, Hi, I'm making the statement right
now that when you get on top of your money,
things will be better in your life. My foundation has
a slogan, don't quit, plan ahead, it will get better,
(13:16):
and I teach the importance of staying on top of
your money, and that's what we're kind of doing here.
When you learn how to manage your money properly, you'll
have success. Your relationships will be better. Same thing you
just said. I can't help but thinking a lot of
people listen to us right now. They may say they're
(13:37):
just way too basic, you know, I mean, get to
the point already, give me the tool. Well, I'm sorry,
but a lot of people think they understand. You know,
I use the Swiss Cheese analogy all the time. And
if you can't glean anything from what John and I
are teaching, like I offered in the second episode, give
me a call and you can start teaching with me
if you want, Because I'm looking for other people that
(13:58):
can share something that's a higher level than than what
I know. And I'm acknowledging that there are plenty of
people out there you reference Warren Buffett in one of
the early early episodes. But what I'm getting at is this,
we are going to teach you a tool today. We're
going to give you a tool, and instead of giving
(14:19):
it to you like on a spreadsheet, it's it's a spreadsheet.
If you know the concept of this, you don't need
to know how to do a spreadsheet. You might not
you might not be good on a computer, you might
not know how to use Excel. If you know how
to use Excel, and many people do, if you understand
the concept in the why this will help you, you'll
(14:40):
be able to do it without seeing it on there.
And my whole my whole career is based on unless
I understand it and can visualize it in my mind.
You can give me a pre poppy a form that's
filling the blanks on your budget, like a bank statement
that a financial statement that says, here, show us what
(15:01):
your life looks like, show us what you're you know.
In other words, give us your give us your balance sheet,
give us you know where you make your money, list
all your bills, et cetera. But listing all your bills
doesn't necessarily have you go to that phase of reflecting,
I'm going to I'm going to do like a rap
song right now and give you like seven or eight
words in a row that all relate to what we're doing.
(15:21):
So you know the decision tool here. If you reflect
on what you're doing, you can decide on what you
want to do next. Better. You can then take action.
You can monitor what you decided to do. Then you
can can make adjustments when you monitor it to modify it.
(15:42):
You can alter your course, you can refocus, you can
explore alternatives, you can develop a plan. And it all
comes down to where if you believe in your dreams
and you have an I can do attitude, you can
use these tools to just really go after them in
a much more positive way than you ever could before.
(16:04):
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had
a lot of people I've been using these tools for
now over fifty years. When I was nineteen years old
and I just turned seventy, I went to Switzerland for
three weeks, and right when I was a freshman in college,
and everybody was saying, how can you afford to take
(16:27):
a trip like that? Steve, and I think last week
I said, because I didn't smoke cigarettes, I didn't drink
a lot of beer. I might have had a few beers,
but I kept it in reason. I didn't waste my money.
I had a used car. I didn't care too much
about about spending money on a car at an early age,
and that carried through my whole life when I had
my band that I had put all those engines and
(16:48):
transmissions and got the air conditioning system. My point is,
I've been doing the substitution principle by eliminating things that
don't have value to me and applying the money that
I that I would have spent on other things to
go after the things that I get focused on. Now,
the first five episodes of this show have helped people,
(17:11):
I think, get a focus on what we're talking about.
But now here's a new one liner that I'm going
to introduce that today's show is really going to work
around the longer lead time advance notice, the longer lead
time a person knows about something that is going to
(17:32):
be a potential problem that they're going to have to face,
the higher the probability that they can have a successful
outcome that and so what we're doing, you know, there's
a whole lot of college courses and people that are
information based decision making courses, like we don't make decisions
(17:52):
without good data. You know, we need data. Everybody's into data,
you know, computers, data, everything, technology, It's all about data,
data accumulation, data analysis, trends, demographics, everything else. Well, I'm
going to take all of that right this second and
make it as simple as it can be through what
(18:14):
I just said. If you know more about what your
future is going to look like and can identify things
that are going to be the obstacles, things that are
crossing your path that you're going to have to deal with,
you won't get caught off guard so much. You won't
end up being in a dilemma, a panic situation. You'll
(18:39):
be able to have thought about it ahead of time
and made arrangements so that you'll be able to not
have to have it break your stride in the path
that you're cruising on down And so here's the simplest example.
And then I think we'll go right into explaining the
myth that I think people are ready for. And once again,
(19:00):
if you understand what we're saying, call me, create a
personal relationship with me. Do the same with Johnny. In
other words. If you like what we're showing you right,
think dot org r I G e H T t
h I n K dot O r G. That's how
(19:23):
you can contact me and Johnny and we will do
y' all know yet that I like to communicate. I
enjoy conversation. I like to talk with people. It's not
just that I like to present. I like to engage.
If you are a person that calls me up. And
I've had many many over the years that I've made
friends with call me up and say, Steve, I like
(19:45):
what you're talking about. But here's my situation. Do you
think that this would work or can you help me?
We're here for you now, Johnny. Here's an example we
talked about. We talked about Christmas, getting ready for Christmas,
you know, And here's the example. Single mom, really hard
working elementary school kids. I've touched from this before in
(20:09):
previous shows, but I'm go deeper and she's working hard.
This is my mother, by the way. She was a
salesgirl an apartment store, single mom, elementary school kid, me
and my sister, and she's you know, she's riding the
bus to work and I'm going through her coins that
she keeps in her change first for my coin collection.
But you know, she wouldn't let me have those coins.
If it was a date that I needed to fill
(20:29):
in my coin collection, as long as I could replace
it with the coin of the same value, she let
me have it. And you know, so that was a
good lesson for me, is that my mother needed her change,
but she let me look through it. I looked through
her change every day and I pulled out coins that
I had dates, and every now and then, I'd say, Mom,
cutting somebody's grass tomorrow. Can I give you the fifty
(20:51):
cent that I owe you after I collect from the
people that are going to pay me for cutting their grass.
She said, yeah, you can, and then we always did it.
She never had to ask me where's that fifty cent?
Because I had good credit with my mom. So here's
the thing, though, single Mom, Christmas is coming, and it's
(21:11):
December the third, a little bit, you know, one day
or two days longer than three weeks till Christmas. I
could say December the fourth and make it a perfect
three registre. Christmas is the name of the story. Single
Mom wakes up and she just almost has a panic
attack in the morning, goes I haven't started doing the
(21:34):
Christmas shopping, and my money is really tight because last
month the washing machine broke and we had to buy that,
and I don't have hardly any extra money, and I
don't want to disappoint my children at Christmas. Well that's
really a bad situation to have. Somebody only have three
weeks to Christmas and they want to make a nice
(21:55):
Christmas for their children. But what if in August that's
scene woman she was settled down drinking a cup of
coffee or whatever she did in the morning, when she's relaxed,
on top of her life. Just remember that commercial smooth
Calm and collect it. You know, the woman's the woman
is on top of her life. She's not letting anything
(22:17):
push her too hard. Here she knows who she is,
and she says, it's first of August. You know, I'm
gonna start setting aside twenty dollars out of every paycheck
she gets paid weekly in this particular job. So what
do is she got August, September, Optember, NOVEMBERY, she's got
four months. She's got four months? Is what thirteen weeks
(22:38):
and three months? She's got seventeen or eighteen weeks? Twenty dollars.
Whatever the number that gives her. You know, that gives
her three hundred and fifty dollars. Maybe she put a
little more. You know, it's not too hard to get
twenty dollars set aside out of aut a out of
your paycheck. Bring that to modern times. We're talking about
the nineteen fifties right now for me. But yeah, you know,
(23:00):
I'll put one hundred bucks in paycheck. You know whatever,
You're going to accumulate a fund, a savings of your money.
And it doesn't have to be in the bank. It
can just be taken out and put it in your
in the in the envelope, put it in a in
a jar, whatever. But now you can start along the way.
(23:20):
Know that I've got some money over here. And whenever
you see a good whenever you see a good U sale,
whenever you see a good purchase, whenever you see an opportunity,
because you're thinking about the gift giving and what you're
going to do to make that Christmas, there's Johnnie. Let
(23:40):
me turn it over you because I've used this story
hundreds of times in my teachings, and I go around
the room and I ask people, Hey, if you were
thinking about your Christmas giving in August. What types of
things could you do than just having enough money when
(24:02):
you want to do your shopping in early December, you
can multiply, Johnny.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Hit it, Okay, So I'm going to use a person
can use the same scenario for anything, such as right now,
my family is when I say my family, and tomorrow
they's seven of us. So all of us are planning
on being going to Disney when money streeduling is in
twenty twenty two. So we know what we're going to
(24:30):
do and we're set aside money for that. So it
can be for Christmas, it can be for your vacation,
if you're planning a way out, It can be for
repairs of a household. It can be for any of
those things. Because you need to still have a university
done right. So what I do, what I'm doing, and
what we talked about, is how do we look at
(24:54):
what we're spending now to set aside those resources. If
it's not already in your you're not already in the excess, right,
So then you can look at your coffee, you know,
how do you how often do you spend it? That's
the reason we're asking me to track it. If you
don't know where your money is. When you start looking
(25:15):
for money to set aside twenty dollars or fifty dollars or.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
One hundred dollars a month, you don't know where to
get it from.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You come to it from a place of black instead
of from a place of I know I can That's
what Stieve said.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
He said, I can do.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
So when I looked at my budget, because I have one,
because don't teach stuff, don't don't get training for people
that are not doing look at training, I'm just saying,
get careful with that.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So I'm looking at.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
My resources right and I'm looking in saying, okay, I'm
just going to put this amount of money aside, which
is great. But I went back to my budget to
say where's that money at.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So that's what I'm doing. I'm going in and I'm
not going.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
To the grocery store or often because sometimes I get,
you know, in the grocery store and buy extra stuff.
I'm going from my list and I'm only buying what's
on the list because I'm prepared to walk into the
store now in twenty right now today, you don't even
have to go inside most.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Stores if you're going to D Days, you can order
it online and you don't.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
You're not even tempted by that, right you know, you
only have what's on the list. Even Walmart has things,
has a thing where they'll drop the groceries off. So
now you're saving time and money. So remember though, if
there's any fees associated with that, that you're going to
use it enough so that the fee associated with it
(26:46):
is covered. It's going to It's not just something you're
paying for and you're not going to use it. So
I'm looking at what am I doing now? So, like
I said, I stop going to Starbucks as much right,
which is and then I don't go to paneras often.
So there's some little things that I've done, like instead
(27:06):
of maybe going twice a week or three times a week,
now only go once. I still get Starbucks, but I
do it at home. So look at where you can
downsize a little bit and make it work. And this
is the This is a tip that I'll give you.
If you're doing this and you're married, or you or
you have kids, bring in the whole family to do this.
(27:29):
See how everybody can join in. Because if you go
out and you you do fast food three times a
week or whatever, right, take it down to two. But
let your family know what you're doing and why you're
doing it, and then they'll be on board, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
So that's the.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Key to engage and communicate is supposed to be this thing.
The first person that you have to communicate is find
out what you desire, and then you share it with
the people that you love in your household that are
partnering with you to ensure that this happens. Some people
are saving for our house. If you're that person, then
(28:14):
talk about it. It's not about we're not telling you
what to save for. We're telling you that you have
the power to transform your life in a way that's
going to make a difference. When you identify and seeks
that when you reflect, when you decide, when you have action,
(28:35):
when you monitor right monitoring what you're doing, you make adjustments.
That's what I just talked about. Then you alter what
you're doing, and then you refocus, read, focus, looking, relok, relook.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
At it again, and then you plan. And those are
the things.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
If you didn't get them the first time, you want
to make sure you write those down because the are
key bullets, are key steps key action steps that you'll
need as you move forward.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Thank you Steve, Thank you Johnny.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
In between the refocus and the plan, explore alternatives. That's
when you start to get creative again. But just just
to put the final spin on the Christmas shopping story,
three weeks to Christmas. If the woman who the single
mom knows in August she can save money because the
same purchases that she's going to be getting she wants
(29:31):
to get some clothes basically for one of her children,
she can start shopping months ahead of time and wait
for the right deal, get the exact right thing, have
a better selection. She can do flea markets. That's a
big answer I get from a lot of people. But
once her eyes are open, this is the whole point
(29:52):
I'm trying to get. Once her eyes are open and
she's looking, because she's got a plan of where she
wants to end up, she's not going to be as
hurried or as rushed, and then she can do everything
that you said about maybe not spending so much on
coffee or different things because she knows. But if a
(30:12):
person is starting to do a discipline saving and she's
got more time to shop more efficiently, get better sales,
better deals, et cetera. She can make things. Maybe maybe
she's a crocheer and she might want to make a
sweater or something for her for someone as a gift.
So when you have that extra freedom to not be
in a panic mode, you'll do better. So now let
(30:35):
me just launch into why looking at it on paper
and again, once you get it down to where you
put yourself in your budget, you don't have to look
at it every day, not even every week or month
if you're living within your means, once you know and
have done this reality check of looking at where am
(30:56):
I with what it is, the way that how, the
way how I'm living? In other words, am I living
the way that I intended to? Am I staying within
these budgets? Do I have enough money to keep doing
these extras that I do. I like to go to
the to the restaurant two or three times a week?
Can I afford to do that? And so when you
look further out, you know, maybe months a year, you'll
(31:21):
see things. And so that trip that I took Switzerland,
by the way, see, that was just the best example
that I can come up with. When I was nineteen
years old, I had a dream not so much a dream.
I dreamed about going into far away places. You know.
I read as a child, Tales of the Arabian Nights,
(31:42):
foreign lands. You know the movie Heidi when she's in
Switzerland with her grandfather. You know, I always, for some reason,
wanted to do a lot of travel, and ultimately I
went into the travel business, can executive travel business. Did
a lot of traveling, but I was motivated to find
a way to do some of the things that I
(32:04):
wanted to do and not just fought. I knew too
many college graduates right now and then that they get
a job right out of college, which is fine. I'm
not discouraging that. You know, that's a very stable life,
of course, but they never do some of the things
that they wanted to do because now that they're working,
(32:25):
they're they're they're tied down, and they can't do all
that they wanted to do with a two week vacation
a year, so to speak, and and just on weekends.
So decide what you want to do, make plans to
get it, get it down on paper, call Steve and
Johnny to talk about it. That's what we're here for, Okay, Johnny.
Before the show started today, I wanted you to see
(32:47):
the spreadsheet that that I'm talking about now, teaching cash
cash in, cash out, weekly budget, how money comes in,
how money goes out the last several weeks, and I
do have sheets that illustrate that BEAUTI plea to understand
the concept. But I developed a tool for myself years ago,
(33:10):
and I pulled up one on my computer from ten
years ago, November of twenty eleven, that I pulled up
one of my cash flow projections. See, we're going from
cash flow budget to cash flow projections. The difference between
budget and projections is a budget's kind of looking at
what you should be able to do, to see how
(33:33):
you spend in your money and can I afford this
or that. That's true, they're very very similar a budget
and a projection. They're pretty much for the same purpose,
but there's nuances in the differences. Cash Flow projections is
looking into the future and determining if the course that
(33:54):
you're on will be able to fund fund the lifestyle
that you were going after, will you have enough money
down the road. And so the first thing to do
is to take take the budget game that we did
weeks ago and list just make a list on a
(34:16):
on a on a piece of paper, on a spreadsheet,
make a list of everything that you spend money on,
that goes out of your pocketbook, that goes out of
your bank account, that goes out you know, how you
use your money and organize it the uh the topic
paper on keeping track of your spending is where this starts.
(34:38):
Take the same information you have there and put that
in the left the first column of a spreadsheet column
A of a spreadsheet, and then on the top part
put cash in and then list all of the money
that you know you're going to be getting, say in
the next year, what are my sources of money that's
(35:00):
coming in the first one that standard is a job.
You know, what's my paycheck? And so put down in
column to the frequency or the timing of when this
money comes in. You know, like every Hey, I'm going
to get Social Security and I'll tell you a date
starts in August. I've waited years for this. It's a
(35:20):
god sent for me. I'm going to get a check
put in a bank account automatic deposit from the United
States Government Department of Social Security on the second Wednesday
of every month for the rest of my life. Yeah,
that's a hallelujah, because eight years ago I could have
(35:42):
started drawing it at a discount. And I analyzed my
finances the way we're talking right now, and the answer
I came up with was I had literally thirty different
people advisors, CPAs, business friends, bankers, people that I was
into professionally, and people in my life, family and family
(36:03):
and close friends. They knew I was struggling because of
my cancer. My money was very very difficult. Well, good,
you can start drawing SOE security at sixty two full
Social Security benefits right around sixty six, I guess. But
if you take it at sixty two, it's thirty percent
less than it is when you take it at the
full amount. And the reason that a lot of people
(36:26):
told me to take it was because I had a
medical diagnosis with an incurable cancer that gave me a
short life expectancy. And CPA even did the numbers for
me and said, Steve, if you don't take it and
you only draw it for a couple years, you're the
total amount that you're going to receive from the government
(36:48):
is going to be you know, in other words, don't wait,
because what if you wait for the higher amount but
you only draw it for two years, well before I
go any further. One of the biggest advantages of waiting
is if you have a spouse that you love and
care about, if you wait, they get a higher benefit
after you're not here. And so my lawyer and friend, Todd,
(37:08):
he told me just the other day when I told
him it starts next month, qualified in July, get my
first check in August. He said, well, you know, Steve,
you did a great thing for your wife because her
check is going to be much higher if you're not here.
And so that was a compliment because he was one
of the ones that pushed me really hard to start
drawing at sixty two because I needed the money desperately.
(37:29):
But the reason that I made a decision not to
start drawing it was because my financial circumstances were so
difficult at the time that the smaller amount the Social
Security that I could have started drawing it wouldn't have
changed my overall situation. So I said, the decision that
I made was now it's not enough, I need to wait,
(37:50):
and I'm going to just find a way to make money.
I motivated myself by looking at my alternative decisions I
could have made thirteen hundred dollars in thirteen fifty seven
is what I would have drawn at sixty two. But
the point is I waited, and then at sixty six
the same people were staying start drawing. Announcede if you
qualify now, and gets you so scaredy I said, no,
I'm going to wait and let it get to the
(38:11):
full growth, which is at seventy seven percent a year.
So it's over twice as much as it would have
been if I'd taken it eight years ago. So I'm
going to celebration now because the amount of money that's
going to come in is a material difference in the
way that I can live my life. Now. It's going
to reduce my pressure. But I looked at that. So
the spreadsheet is list how your money's coming in. And
(38:34):
my example the spreadsheet I'm doing now, I put in
the second column, second second Wednesday of every month. Okay, now,
just to give you the example at the very top,
this is the key to the whole sheet. You're going
to have where the money's coming from the date that
you expect to get it, and then you're going to
(38:56):
put weeks all the way out there at the top
actual calendar dates. The one I showed you this morning, Johnny.
November the twelfth, twenty eleven to November the eighteenth, twenty
eleven is week one, and then it just goes to
the next week, November the nineteenth, and November the twenty twenty,
(39:19):
twenty fifth or whatever, twenty sixth, and it goes on
down the road. And I dragged that, and so I
have a sheet that's got that one was actually a
fourteen month sheet. I just did it over over like
fifty six columns, fifty seven columns or whatever it was.
And then the SOB security example is if I know
that I'm getting on the second week of every month,
(39:39):
I don't just go to the second calendar week when
you're looking at the top of the dates and look
for the not the first week of each month, but
the second week and put that amount in that box
in that cell on a spreadsheet. So now I'm starting
to build this big looking matrix puzzle. Okay, paycheck, let's
(40:00):
say that you're getting five hundred bucks a week, or
let's make it one thousand dollars a week net paycheck.
I'm dealing with cash net paycheck, So you just put
one thousand dollars all the way out now, when you're
looking at your your numbers, you might say, you know
what I ought to be getting a raise. Well, you're
going to be motivated when you see your numbers to
(40:21):
say I need a raise. You know you asked early out,
what are you spending that raise on? Is it changing
your lifestyle? Is it making it easier and better for you? Okay,
so you list your incomes, but let me give you
a couple examples of your incomes. Your paycheck, your social security,
your your moonlighting, your part time work, you know, whatever
(40:41):
you like to do. And see, that's another decision you're
going to make here. If you're looking for some major
purchase down the road and you realize that you're watching television,
you know, seven nights a week, Well maybe if you
think you could use an extra two hundred dollars in
your budget a month, twenty four hundred dollars a year,
maybe you're willing to get some out of a part
time job. In ords, you can determine how much additional
(41:04):
income you need when you see the answer that we're
going to get to in a few minutes at the
bottom of the page, So you might put your part
time job in there. If people owe you money that
you're that you expect them to pay you back. Because
a friend borrowed a couple hundred bucks because you really
were there for him, put that on the sheet if
you want to pay it back. If you don't want
(41:25):
to get paid back because it was a gift, don't
put it on a sheet. Tax refund, now here's a
really good use of projecting your money. If you look
at the answer and I haven't shown you the expenses yet,
and show you how it goes. You know, one week's
how much is available this week. At the end of
the week, that's the that's the starting point for this
(41:46):
for the next week. That's that's your beginning balance of
the next week. And so I'll get into that in
the moment, but I just want to stay on this point.
Your tax refund. If you're a person that likes to
just have forced savings, have a whole lot taken out
because you know you haven't been managing your money properly.
Not a lot of real high level finance people will
(42:08):
chastise you and say, don't let the government hold on
to your money, get it back yourself, don't overpay your worthholding,
take it and put it into a savings Well, savings
ain't going to get you too much these days, so
I think it's better to build a principle. And if
you're weak with how you hold on the money, you
let it slip out of your fingers for too many
things that are frivolous or unnecessary. Get a two thousand
(42:30):
dollars tax refund each year because that will help you
straighten out your life when April fifteenth comes around. But
if you know that you want to plan something next
year early in the year, do your tax return early.
You have control of when that refund comes in. So
if you put it down there at April fifteenth, because
(42:52):
you filed by April fifteenth, and that refund comes in
three weeks later, do your tax turn in February and
get that money coming in first of March. You have
control of your timing. You'll see it like this. So
put all your income up there. You know, refunds, things
like insurance, you know, like whatever your income is. If
you're saving and you've got investments or you've got whatever,
(43:18):
just build your own income. I'm just showing you how
to do it. I don't know what your situation is.
That's why I don't like to give out a pre
prepopulated form to do this, learn how to do it.
So the beginning is the top section is your incomes.
But then the next part goes down and it's how
your money goes out. Take all of your household expenses first.
(43:38):
Put your rent or your mortgage, all of your utilities,
all of those kind of things like lay those in there,
things that you have to pay every month. And then
at the bottom of which you have to pay every month,
add things that you pay that you're necessary, like an
insurance premium. I pay mine in six months. Every six
months I pay a premium. Put that in there too,
So get all your cash out out. This is the
(44:01):
same exercise we did when we did the Managing Managing
your topic paper number five, where it was all about
keeping track of your spending. Now put that out, put
the date that it's due. Put the date of those
in charge premiums that are due. Put the date that
your mortgage payment is, and column to put the date
(44:21):
in your mortgage payment you intend to make that payment on,
whatever the date is, And then go into the sheet
and put that amount in the calendar and you'll see
it out there. If it's doing it for a year,
you'll see twelve of those spread out over there. And
then after that cash cash expenses in your household bills, food, gasoline,
(44:43):
for your car, entertainment expense. You can break down every
expense you want to as deep as you want. And
this budget I did in twenty eleven, I had my
money was pretty good, so instead of going into entertainment
expense or credit card payment, I just paid a lot
(45:04):
of things through my credit card and then I paid
the bill at the end of the month. And I said,
if I pay a certain amount of money once a
month to my credit card, I will use that to
cover my entertainment, my birthday gifts, the things that I
don't really want to have to track too carefully. But
if I was in a mode where my money was
really really tight, I would lay my budget out by
(45:25):
line item for birthday gifts. I taught earlier in this series.
Put the actual date of every person that you're going
to give a gift to, just so you see it once,
and then put the date when you're going to spend
that money. When their birthday is, when your anniversary is,
when you're buying different things, and then when you get
all that done, put your formulas in and certain the
(45:46):
line at the top that says beginning balance, and put
how much money you're starting with in your different bank
accounts that are there. You do not have to put
savings and other things on this sheet when you're tracking
the money that is disposable income. In other words, when
I put my bank accounts on here, I'm not putting
(46:08):
how much is a in a stock account an investment
account that I started last year, because I'm not touching
that money. My long term stavings is not part of
this projection. That's a use of my money. Like if
I say five hundred dollars a month to put into
my into my mutual fund, I don't show that as
a source of income that's available in my balance. It's
(46:31):
a cash out of my budget that's being invested over
on the side. It's there for a for very difficult
times that I have to cash it out, but I'm
not showing it as money available for this projection. So
the first the first line is beginning balance, how much
money I've got in wherever I've got that's available to
(46:51):
me that I bring. Then I bring in all my
sources that are coming in and I get a subtotal.
This is money that's available this week, and then I
put all the expenses and I see the ones that
have to be paid in this week, and then I
total those I subtracted available, and then it tells me
if I'm plus or minus to being able to keep
(47:13):
my head above water, or if I'm don't have enough.
That's the first decision point. Is it negative or is
it positive. If it's negative, you need to not spend
some money on something. You might need to get a
part time job. You might need to be thinking about
paying less rent, move if you have to. Bottom line
(47:33):
is what you have at the end of that week
for all that you're obligated to do that's in your budget.
Taking out your cash a certain amount for your weekly
food budget, and how much you spend on your gasoline
for your car. That becomes the beginning balance of the
next week. And so when you do this and look
at it every year, you'll see into the future. And
then if you have a surplus that's getting big. If
(47:56):
you're making if you're living well within your means, that's
where you now have the joy of sitting back saying
I'm doing really good since I've been monitoring this. Now
I've got two thousand dollars. It's going to be there
in seven months because I'm coming up ahead each week.
My weekly balance is growing, growing, growing. This is where
(48:18):
you want to be, by the way. Then you say, well,
I'm going to add an investment account. So you pop
a line into what you're looking at and just say
investment account. And then you say, I'm going to put
I'm going to put three hundred dollars a month, five
hundred dollars a month, whatever the number, and then put
when you want to start doing it, and then pull
(48:39):
that money out, spend some of that surplus in a
positive way, or saved to go to Disney with my
family next year. You'll see where you're at. And then
just segregate those funds. Put a line in there, take
physically the money and put it wherever you want to
set it aside so that it doesn't get merged or
commingled into the US. At the very end of this,
(49:02):
you sit back and you look at it, and if
everything's really good, you're good. If everything's really good, you're good,
and you can make some decisions on alternative ways to
use this income and keeping your expenses in line, or
add another expense, or add another savings program, add another investment,
(49:24):
give another gift, increase your times, Johnny, I've been doing
this for twenty five thirty years, and it's the very
best gift that I want to leave behind to the
world because it works and it gets me on top
of my life. And I have to tell you my
(49:47):
finances are very complicated for myself because I fight two
terminal illnesses. I have a lot of doctor bills, a
lot of things. But when I get to where I
have something coming up, For example, I'm going to be
taking a trip when I'm okay with the pandemic travel,
I'm going to be taking a trip to go out
to the West Coast to visit my daughter and her
(50:08):
husband and my grandkids. I'm long overdue, it's just a
pandemic that's stopping me. But when I take that trip,
I'm going to need a I'm going to need a
budget one thousand and fifteen hundred dollars depending on my
mode of travel and how long I go. When I
do this projection, I look at it and I go, well,
(50:29):
if I want to go in four months, I better
start putting my money together now and so when I
get a lot of things, I do my budget generally
around May or June, just to kind of tidy it up.
Because I mentioned in an earlier, earlier episode, I got
(50:49):
nine people in my family that have birthdays or my
anniversary with my wife or whatever, all in a seven
eight week period. So that's going to cost whatever my
budget is. And you can get real detail, you know,
spend whatever you can afford. But my wife and I
sort of have a be fair with everybody, be consistent.
(51:12):
I show favoritism, so we know how much we generally
spend for each of the different family members to keep
them all in kind of a different groupings Like grandkids.
We like the budget a certain amount for each grandkid,
and we do that at birthday season, we do that
in summertime. You know whatever. But you will not know
what you're doing with your life if you don't take
(51:32):
a look every now and then to tune it up.
And I've been doing it forever, and I can make
major decisions in my life. Can I afford to stay
in my house when I fight my cancer? Or will
I be able to hold on long enough till I
get that fat soz to security check. That's going to
be coming in when I turn seventy. But I use
it differently too. I know when I've got to go
(51:54):
out and get a new client because my money is
not going to be okay in a couple months, and
so I like to give my self as much lead
time to know what I'm doing and to be real
kind of straight about it. I know how much raise
that I need when I go ask for a raise.
I know how much I'm not willing to accept if
I'm going to stay at a certain employer. In other words,
(52:17):
but you have to give value to get paid for
what you are asking for. So, Johnny, I think I
laid it out about as much as I could. Whatever
your thoughts or comments or reaction to what I just did,
thank you for being a patient listener on that. But
it works, Johnny. I live my whole life doing what
(52:39):
I just said I do. And the example I gave
today is I reviewed with you just so you'd understand
the concept and see it down once from something I
did all over eleven years ago. Well it's actually twenty eleven.
Was ten years in November that I did this sheet.
But I use that sheet and update it whenever I
want to same format.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
I think the information the categories.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Are very powerful, and I even like really the flexibility
of people realizing that I'm counting for everything that comes
in and then a counting for everything that goes out,
and the planning and the restructuring and the refocusing and
(53:26):
all of that.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Right, I really like that piece.
Speaker 3 (53:29):
And there are some people that are getting let's say,
child support or they're giving out child support.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Well, either way you need to account for that.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
There's some people. And when you do the child support,
because I was a single parent, I said, man, I
guess I am.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
My daughter's grown.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
But I'm saying so the deal with that is, at
some point I didn't need and I want to stress
that word, I did not need. What her father was
giving us giving her actually wasn't for me or for her.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
In the household.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
So when that happened, I took the funds and put
it in an account for her so that when she
went to college or when she did things in her future,
that those resources were there to support and help her.
So it was a separate account that I did. So
there is some things that you mentioned. One of the
(54:27):
other things that you mentioned that I thought was so
powerful is The whole thing was amazing, but there was
key points for me. It was giving your self rates
because most people don't look at what they can offer
to increase or build an additional stream of interime. So
(54:48):
one of the things that I'm gonna say is this
is that look at your finances and make the decisions
because i mean, basically Steve said if you were spending
to much for the house, if you're spending too much
in different areas, you can make adjustments, right, and the
adjustments don't have to be permanent, but they need to
(55:09):
get you to a healthy place.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Now.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
The other thing is there's not the two ways to
balance about can we just be real? But this is
a reality check, right, it's just income in and expenses out.
If you want to live like you're living and don't
want to make any changes, we still say that do this,
(55:31):
but look for a way that you can increase your income.
And I'm not just saying low to your boss and
explore raise. I'm saying that look at yourself and say
what service where you said if you're sitting in front
of the TV for a few hours a week, you
might want to go get a part time job because
you don't want to give up anything, no problem, it's
(55:51):
an exchange. You're going to have to either give up
time or respecture if there's something to make your budget balance.
And then really you're going beyond valance. You want to
have access at the end of every month. And Steve
mentioned it, and I want to reiterate it that you
(56:12):
want to add in saying that you're going to give yourself.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
You want to build an account for savings.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
You want to build that in it so that just
like you pay everybody else, that you pay yourself right,
you want to do those things. And so from a
personal perspective, as we come and wrap this up, is
this is what I'll tell you is that this opportunity
to take your control back is something you must choose.
(56:45):
It's something you choose.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
It's not even.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Though we desire it and we would love.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
To fix it, you have to continuously consistently choose it
so that it becomes part.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
Of your lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
It's and let me say this in addition to that,
is a budget is not to restrict you cash flow
budget or the way your cash flow projection.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
It is not to restrict you.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
Is actually to empower you because you are empowered when
you have information.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
You are empowered. When you know what.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
You have right in your hands and you know what's
coming in. You become empowered because you don't want to
look at somebody else and say, well, it's their fault. No,
it's not Make a choice. You don't want to shame yourself.
Don't shame yourself. It's not about that. Make a choice,
(57:44):
reclaim your life, reclaim what you say you want in
such a way that you are empowered to make decisions. Now,
you're going to make some decisions anyway, but isn't it
good to know what the impact is going to be?
Speaker 2 (58:00):
And I'm gonna say something simple, it's really funny. And
if you.
Speaker 3 (58:04):
Follow me on TikTok a Mama day on TikTok. So
if you follow me on TikTok, what happens is this.
I went on a I went on, I've been walking
in the morning and I decided not to do what
I normally do is pull my hair back.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Now, this is a simple.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
This is a simple When I the wind was blowing
and it was human outside. By the time I came in,
I was scared. I mean literally I had to get
on show this morning. So I had to go, oh
my gosh. Matter of fact, I looked at my side,
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (58:37):
That will happen in your life sometime with your budget,
something will happen that you did not get and you
thought was a great plan. It was for your benefit.
The walking is for your benefit, right, but something beyond
your what you thought it didn't come out that way.
So you have to decide at that point what are
you going to do to fix it.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
You are not a.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
Victim in your finances, You're not a victim with your income.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
You are empowered.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
So order these sheets that we're talking about and start
walking out your plan.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
Reach out to us because this is the deal.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
If you have questions or things like that, that's what
the show is about, so that.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
We can answer your questions.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
Right, So empower yourself in such a way that not
just your life with the impact, but everybody around you.
And this is my final statement. Most people say they
don't want to make a decision, but do you realize
and not making even decision officially is a decision. You're
(59:43):
indecision is a decision. The fact that you won't move
forward is a decision. So what we're asking you to
do is make a decision for life. You choose choose
life lay before you life and another in not so
(01:00:05):
much life. I'm not gonna say death, but let's say
the death of your finances or the impact or the
destruction of your finances.
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Right, that's what you have before.
Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
You, and we're going to even give you the answer
to the question choose, like, just choose what that's what
we're at. Choose like to view your family and your
next step, choose.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Like Johnny, thanks for being with me. I appreciate I
appreciate everybody for bearing with the way that I kind
of kind of talk through what I'm trying to show you.
If if you're still with me, I there's a whole
lot more we can do. The future. Week is going
to start getting into making it better now that you
(01:00:49):
see what it looks like, uh, debt consolidation, improving your
credit and if and if all those are in order,
which many of you that are that are participating, it's
in the order. You're you're good, You're stable, You're you're
you're you're better than me and Johnny at handling this stuff.
You know you're mature, But if you're like that, build
(01:01:10):
build your estate, build a build, build a future for
succeeding generations. It's endless what you can do when you're
on top of it. Johnny, you made me think a
real simple little analogy, and this is the last thing
I'm going to say. It's another question. Would you rather
be the ping pong ball that's going back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth from one side to
(01:01:32):
the other, or would you like to be the paddle
that's got the hand that makes that point get scored
by directing that ping pong ball against your opponent. We're
not talking about competition or opponents here. We're just trying
to help you take control of your life. So, Johnny,
it was great today. Thank you for your input, thank
you for your responses. Everyone, have a wonderful week today.
(01:01:54):
God bless you. Thanks for listening to right thinking with
Steve Cooper. I'll look forward to being with you again
next week. And remember, don't quit plan ahead. It will
get better. God bless you, and have a great week.
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